Golf Clubs & Guitars (Part III)

The following is the final installment of a multi-part, true story from my "formative" years about two things I love but never mastered: golf and guitar. To be honest, this story is really about the guitar; I’ll explore golf at another time.

If you didn’t read Part I and Part II, I’d suggest it before you dive in. Enjoy.

There’s something about sitting at a corner bar on a weekday afternoon, sipping a tapped beer with a cigarette between your fingers, listening to great music on the jukebox.

I guess you just don’t figure playing out that scene as a high school sophomore. It was week four of my experiment with guitar lessons, and by now, while I can’t say I was “comfortable” with Dave as my teacher, he was growing on me. I learned to interpret his grunts, one-word retorts and the various ways he inhaled and exhaled his Marlboros, and we were making modest progress.

I learned that the lesson in all this—as with any new activity, guitar being no exception—was to appreciate that the early days and weeks would be difficult. The real progress would lie in the relentless practice required to conquer each chord, picking pattern and scale. I was, shall we say, “selective” in the activities I pursued relentlessly in my life at that time, and learning the guitar—or specifically, some of the strange things Dave was teaching me--wasn’t one of them.

But I was coming along, and at one point, he admitted as much. “Not bad,” I think were his exact words after I played a passage he’d shown me the previous week. And that felt good. So, as I climbed the stairs for week four, I felt like maybe we were about to make a breakthrough in our time together.

Turns out I was right, but it wasn’t the breakthrough I had expected.

As usual, Dave’s door was ajar, and by now, I didn’t bother to knock. I simply walked in and set down my case as he finished his “lick,” a fast but unrecognizable (at least to me) melody that struck of hard rock, but when played on an acoustic guitar, didn’t pack the same punch as it would on an electric.

As I sat down and began to open my case, he shook his head mid-solo and mid-puff. “Keep it in the case. We’re doin’ something different this week,” he said.

Puzzled and a little (but only a little) intrigued, I waited as Dave finished his passage, put out his cig and propped his guitar against the wall. He then grabbed his wallet and started walking out. “C’mon,” he said, and I dutifully followed.

Down the stairs we went, onto Main Street. By the time I got outside, Dave was already 20 feet ahead of me, walking at a brisk clip, at least for a guy with a two-pack-a-day habit.

Without anything better to do (and no real ideas of my own), I fell in step. Minutes later, we entered a local bar, where Dave gave me a few quarters with instructions to “play some good shit.”

I did as I was asked, as he strode to the bar. After choosing a half-dozen songs (some that I liked; others I thought he’d like), I also ponied up to the bar, where Dave was already halfway through a tapper of Miller High Life, which he drank with the same hand that held his Marlboro. “He’s with me,” he told the bartender, who didn’t ask for ID, or even really care that I looked exactly as old as I was, which in bar terms was simply “underage.” (It was a different time, with different unwritten rules. I’ll leave it at that.)

We sat silently for a couple of minutes, listening, drinking and smoking. (Well, I was listening only; he was doing all three.) The bartender hadn’t asked what I wanted (by way of a “soft drink,” of course). In fact, he didn’t even acknowledge me, as though pretending I wasn’t there would give him plausible deniability should the authorities enter and ask him why a minor was sitting at the bar with someone who was obviously not an adult family member.

I wasn’t comfortable, but I wasn’t uncomfortable either. When I was much younger, my dad would occasionally take me with him to his favorite corner bar on Saturdays before our weekly visit at my grandma’s house. So, the sights, smells and general ambience of a local tavern didn’t impress, intimidate or faze me.

In addition, though Dave and I couldn’t be more different in just about every way, I’d become comfortable with him, his demeanor and the way he plied his trade. He wasn’t a great teacher, but I was learning things from him. So, I decided to play out this moderately surreal (by today’s standards anyway) scene and see where it led.

As the jukebox played one song after another, he’d voice his opinions:

“This is good. Listen for the bass line. It’s so much more complicated that you think it is.”

*****

“I don’t like this song, but I do like how the guitar fills in the gaps when the singer isn’t singing. It’s like they’re having a conversation.”

*****

“This song sounds simple, and but it’s damn hard to play. Lots of quirky chord progressions.”

And on it went.

Since we only had 30 to 45 minutes together each week, Dave had time for one (maybe two) High Lifes and couple of cigarettes. Before I knew it, we were out the door and back to his second floor “lair.”

When we got there, I picked up my still-unopened guitar case. “See you next week,” I said, not really knowing what else to say after such a bizarre experience. As I headed for the door, he spoke. “Hey,” he said. “If you want to play guitar, lessons will help, but it’s really just about falling in love with the instrument. If you love to play, you’ll play. And when you play, you’ll get better. I love to play, and I love to hear other people play. That’s why we did what we did today.”

I’m not sure if I said anything in response; maybe I just nodded before leaving to meet my mom, who was dutifully (and patiently) waiting in the parking lot behind the store, knowing we generally went 10 or 15 minutes over time each Wednesday, and NOT knowing that on this Wednesday, we spent our time in a smoky corner bar.

When I got in the car, Mom said, “How was your lesson?” I simply responded, “It was good,” not offering any detail. And to her credit, she didn’t ask for any.

The next week would be my last lesson, not because I didn’t think I needed it, but because I had thought about what Dave had said to me. And he was right. If I wanted to get better at the guitar, I needed to fall in love with it and play it … a lot. And if I didn’t, lessons weren’t

going to have much effect.

Since then, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with the guitar; that is, I feel like I love it, but it doesn’t think much of me.

I feel the same way about golf. I love it, but it doesn’t love me. Fact is, sometimes I think it hates me, and I have evidence to prove it.

That summer of my 16th year, my uncle, Bob, bought me a starter set of golf clubs. And much like my experience with the guitar, I went into the sport with no knowledge of how to play. We’ll get into that (and the endless stories I have, many of which include my best friend/cousin Mike and most which end in injury or failure) at another time.

But back to the guitar. You know, there’s a saying that goes something like, “Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put tomatoes in your fruit salad.” I guess that’s how I felt about Dave. He knew the guitar, and he recognized my desire to learn it. But he also knew maybe I wasn’t quite ready to take lessons, but rather, simply to explore the instrument on my own. And he was wise enough to give me that advice and let me determine if I wanted to take that advice, or if I was going to try to make a fruit salad with tomatoes.

My last lesson was probably the best one I had. We played the intro to Stairway to Heaven, and we also played Sweet Home Alabama in its entirety with him on vocals. And when I left that day, he simply said, “See ya’ around.” I replied, “Thanks Dave … for everything.”

I never saw him again … and I never forgot his wise words.

© 2025 David R. Haznaw